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Fiscal Policy and the Labour Market: The Effects of Public Sector Employment and Wages

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  • Gomes, Pedro Maia

    () (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Abstract

I build a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with search and matching frictions and two sectors in order to study the labour market effects of public sector employment and wages. Public sector wages plays an important role in achieving the efficient allocation. High wages induce too many unemployed to queue for public sector jobs, while if they are low, the government faces recruitment problems. The optimal steady-state wage premium depends mainly on the labour market friction parameters. In response to technology shocks, it is optimal to have procyclical public sector wages. Deviations from the optimal policy can increase the volatility of unemployment significantly. Public sector wage and employment shocks have mixed effects on unemployment. A wage shock raises the unemployment rate, while a reduction in the separations lowers it. Hiring more people can increase or decrease the unemployment rate. All shocks raise the wage and crowd out employment in the private sector. In the empirical part, I employ Bayesian methods to estimate the parameters of the model for the United States. I find that the direct search mechanism between the two sectors is an important element to explain business cycle fluctuations of the labour market variables.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 5321.

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Length: 61 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5321

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Keywords: public sector employment; public sector wages; unemployment; fiscal shocks;

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  1. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Hélène Turon, 2005. "The Public Pay Gap in Britain: Small Differences That (Don't?) Matter," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 05/121, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Fiscal Policy and the Labour Market: The Effects of Public Sector Employment and Wages
    by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2010-12-30 14:35:19
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Cited by:
  1. Valerie A. Ramey, 2012. "Government Spending and Private Activity," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Monacelli, Tommaso & Perotti, Roberto & Trigari, Antonella, 2010. "Unemployment fiscal multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 531-553, July.
  3. Holden, Steinar & Sparrman, Victoria, 2011. "Do Government Purchases Affect Unemployment?," Memorandum 17/2011, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
  4. Totzek, Alexander & Winkler, Roland C., 2010. "Fiscal stimulus in a model with endogenous firm entry," Economics Working Papers 2010,05, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
  5. T. Buyse & F. Heylen, 2012. "Leaving the empirical (battle)ground: Output and welfare effects of fiscal consolidation in general equilibrium," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 12/826, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  6. Gonzalo Fernàndez-de-Córdoba & Javier J. Pérez & José L. Torres, 2009. "Public and private sector wages interactions in a general equilibrium model," Working Paper Series 1099, European Central Bank.
  7. Roland Winkler & Alexander Totzek, 2011. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Business Cycle Model with Firm Entry," 2011 Meeting Papers 140, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  8. James Costain & Beatriz de Blas, 2012. "Smoothing shocks and balancing budgets in a currency union," Banco de España Working Papers 1207, Banco de España.
  9. Jörn Tenhofen & Guntram B. Wolff, 2010. "Does anticipation of government spending matter? The role of (non-)defense spending," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse12_2010, University of Bonn, Germany.
  10. Michaillat, Pascal, 2011. "Fiscal Multipliers Over the Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 8610, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Burgert, Matthias & Gomes, Pedro, 2011. "The Effects of Government Spending: A Disaggregated Approach," Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48690, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  12. Costain, James & de Blas, Beatriz, 2012. "The role of fiscal delegation in a monetary union: a survey of the political economy issues," Working Papers in Economic Theory 2012/11, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).

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